Third period, history. Chiyabashira-sensei’s class. She walked in as the bell signaling the start of class rang. The student’s attitudes didn’t change, though.

“Everyone, be quiet— Today’s class will be more serious.”

“What do you mean~ Sae-chan-sensei~”

She was already given a nickname by the class.

“It’s the end of the month. We will have a short test. Pass these to the back.”

She handed out papers to the first row. Eventually, the test reached my desk. The test had several questions from each of the 5 major topics.

“Eh~ I didn’t hear anything~. I don’t wanna take it~”

“Calm down. This test is only for future reference. It will not be reflected on your report card. There’s no risk, so be at ease. However, cheating is naturally prohibited.”

There was a slightly strange phrase included in her words. Normally, grades are reflected only in the report card. However, Chiyabashira-sensei’s words are a bit different. It looks like she’s implying that these grades won’t be reported on our report card, but will be reported in some other way. Well… maybe I’m worrying too much. Since it won’t be included in the report card, there’s nothing to be cautious about.[1]

Once the test started, I looked through the questions. 20 questions, 4 per section, and 5 points per question for a total of a 100 points. However, the questions were extraordinarily easily, and so it felt anticlimactic.

The questions on this test are about 2 levels below the entrance exam questions. Everything here is too simple.

I thought that, but about 3 questions on the test were harder than the others. The last math problem probably can’t be solved without using complicated formulas.

“No… Why are these problems so hard…”

These are clearly not for first year high school students. The last three questions are of a different nature; it wouldn’t be surprising if they were put on by mistake.

Why are they measuring our ability with this test?

Well, I’ll just solve these problems the same way I did on the entrance exam.

Chiyabashira-sensei was monitoring the students as she walked around the classroom. I glanced at Horikita, watching her steadily fill in the answers to the questions. Looks like she’ll get perfect marks.

I kept looking at the test until the final bell sounded. [2]

In this section, he recognizes that the teacher uses the particle ko instead of k to say, “the test will not be reflected on your report card”. The usage of the ko particle instead of the k particle indicates that whereas the test isn’t reflected on the report card, it might be included in some other record.

The text is ambiguous as to whose test paper he actually keeps looking at.